Live Concert Installation, 40 mins, 2011
Notes From the Hard Road - a live concert event that closed the Melbourne Arts Festival in front of the 10,000 people at the Myer Music Bowl - chronicles an inspiring canon of songs from civil rights, anti-war and women’s suffrage to environmentalism, feminism and the abolition movement in a glorious and daring celebration of the music of protest, rebellion, love and hope.
Mavis Staples, Joss Stone, Emmanuel Jal, Paul Dempsey and Rickie Lee Jones along with artists of the Black Arm Band including Archie Roach, Lou Bennett, Emma Donovan, Shane Howard and Dan Sultan, sang songs by Billie Holiday, Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, Leonard Cohen, Pete Seeger and Green Day, to name just a few, Notes from the Hard Road and beyond is a unique and joyous testament to the indomitable nature of the human spirit, and the inherent beauty of inspiration and resistance in song.
Daybreak Films worked with the artists to create a series of lyrical and evocative films using archival sources to accompany the songs and performance, and create powerful moments of struggle, resistance, oppression and triumph. The films, screened across single and dual screens, was part of this one-off performance that was breathtaking in its intensity and power.
